


Not Anymore

by Mortissimo



Category: The Tribe (TV 1999)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-05
Updated: 2006-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh meets a Techno.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Anymore

  
I was fourteen when I joined the Technos. A year had passed since my half-brother had abandoned me in the caravan we'd called home since the Virus took our real homes away from us. A year spent wandering through the wilderness, avoiding slavers and loud noises and things that went bump in the night. A year of cold nights and panicked awakenings and not enough food. It was a year spent in Hell.

When I first woke up to a rumble and a trembling in the ground under me, I thought I was in the middle of an earthquake. Pushing myself onto my hands and knees I made to fold my arms over my head in a gesture born of years of earthquake drills in school that even a lifetime of living in the wild couldn't have erased. Then I heard the voices, one louder than the rest and shouting in a definite cadence, the strange rhythmic rumble following his lead. Footsteps, I realised, scrambling to my feet. And trucks. Sliding in my haste to get away from the roadside where I had spent the night, I heard the voice just around the bend and ducked behind a nearby tree, pressing my back against the rough bark and waiting for my racing pulse to calm itself down. It didn't. The trucks came around the bend in the road and I could hear the words of the man's chant, rude and caustic, egging on those who followed him more than encouraging them. I hadn't spoken to another person in the year since Slade had left, and even English was almost beyond my comprehension.

A few seconds later the massive trucks and the marching men passed me by, leaving a small series of pebbleslides to mark their passing. Acting on impulse, I leaned out from behind the tree to watch them go by, amazed by the order of their lines, their uniforms, the size of their military trucks. There was one who walked behind the rest, the fingers of his left hand brushing some strange device attached to his right wrist. There to pick up stragglers, I guessed, judging from the way he turned from side to side as they went by, scanning the roadside across from my hiding place. I meant to hide again, but he turned my way and I froze like a deer in headlights.

He didn't seem to be much older than I was, although he was far more clean and well-groomed, giving him an older air that was unusual in these times between the end of the old society and the birth of this new one. His tribal warpaint was plain, a black 'T' in two red circles between his dark eyebrows and a red crescent on his cheek. His hair was bleached yellow and gelled in a style that had been popular before the Virus struck. Despite his utilitarian appearance and uniform, though, there was an undeniable kindness in his eyes that seemed out of sorts with the military company he travelled with, a warmth that drew me to him instantly. I realised that we had been staring at each other for nearly a minute now, the black thing on his wrist half-raised in my direction. He seemed to come to the same realisation, starting guiltily and lowering his arm back to his side. It took me a moment to process what he shouted to me as a greeting, and a promise of nonviolence. It took me far longer to remember how to respond in the same language.

"Hello," I called back, voice hoarse from disuse. It only occurred to me then that maybe these uniformed boys were slavers, but by now it was too late. I'd given up my position to a sudden impulse for conversation. This one's eyes did seem far too kind for such an ugly profession. Or so I justified to myself, struggling to calm jangling nerves.

"Why don't you come down here?" He waved at me, left hand surreptitiously brushing his right wrist. A high-pitched whine that I'd been trying to ignore died down, and it occured to me that the black device might have been some kind of weapon. Interesting. I shook my head. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You said that." The nuances of speech were returning to me slowly. Sarcasm has always been something I have been gifted with, from when I first learned to speak. No surprise that my second line of dialogue in nearly a year was drenched in it.

"I meant it. You look like you could use some help, and we can give it to you." Then he smiled. I'd realised before that he seemed kind, but I hadn't realised that he was also beautiful until he smiled. I don't think I'd been in love before that moment, and I didn't know what to make of it. I still don't.

"Who are you?" I caught myself reaching out to take his hand and stopped, snatching my hand back sharply. It wouldn't do for me to trust this stranger so quickly. Even my own family, my own flesh and blood, could betray me, why would I entrust myself to this boy?

"I'm Jay." Without my consent the name moved immediately and irrevocably into my heart, my mouth forming it reflexively to see how it tasted. "We're the Technos." That explained the mark on his forehead. I'd been wondering what it stood for, vaguely remembering something to do with detergent. "Are you alone?"

"Yes." That answer, at least, took no thought. I'd been thinking about little else for an entire year, that one small mantra repeating itself in my head over and over, 'I'm alone'. However, a very small and infinitely hopeful part of me, the part of me that was still the child I should have been, was desperate to answer 'not anymore'.

"Then come with us." He leaned forward, one foot up on the tangled mass of roots at the base of the tree I'd been hiding behind. Very hesitantly I took his hand, twining our fingers together, and slid down the embankment to stand on the paved road beside him. I kept our hands pressed together for longer than I should have, pretending that I hadn't noticed or that it didn't matter to me one way or another. Human contact, after so long alone. It was almost enough to make me cry, if I'd had any tears left. "What's your name?" I guessed that he thought I was younger than I was, squeezing my hand and smiling openly down at me like a saint or an angel.

"I don't think I have one anymore." My mother had named me Josh, but I knew even then that the child I had been was dead. Josh was dead, he had been ever since Slade left him to rot in that broken-down caravan. "Where are you going?" This was more important to me than the past. The past was full of ghosts and death and betrayal. At one point the future had seemed as bleak and pointless as the path I'd already travelled, but Jay's invitation had fractured a single gray pane into a million possible fragments.

"We're going to save the world."


End file.
